Former Boulder Police Chief – JonBenet crime scene was mishandled

(ABC7NEWS.COM) BOULDER, Colo. – In new comments about the murder of 6-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey, former Boulder police chief Mark Beckner says officers mishandled their initial response at the Ramsey home on Dec. 26, 1996.

Beckner made the comments during a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” session over the weekend, although he now says he did not realize the forum he was writing in was public.

“I talked to the organizer and my impression was that this was a members-only type group that talked about unsolved mysteries all around the world,” Beckner told the Daily Camera.

Beckner said officers should have separated JonBenet’s parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, to take their statements that day.

JonBenet was found dead in the basement of her family’s Boulder, Colo. home the day after Christmas after her mother had initially called 911 to report her daughter missing and say that a ransom note had been found.

It was a “perfect storm type scenario,” Beckner wrote, with his department understaffed because of the Christmas holiday and facing a crime scene that was already attracting onlookers while officers will still trying to secure the scene.

“…we faced a situation as I said earlier that no one in the country had ever seen before or since…” Beckner wrote on Reddit.

No one has ever been prosecuted for JonBenet’s murder, although the case gripped the attention of nation for years after. However, court documents released in 2013 revealed that a grand jury had recommended indictments against John and Patsy Ramsey.

At the time, the District Attorney had said there wasn’t enough evidence to charge the pair. In 2008, a different DA had cleared JonBenet’s parents for any role in her death, two years after Patsy had passed away.

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